I recently watched Lynne Ramsay’s latest film Die My Love, the first she’s released in about 8 years, so it’s appropriate to do a ranking of one of my all-time favourite directors.
5 – Die My Love
I want to preface this by saying I really like all of Ramsay’s films, it’s just that some Ramsay films are better than others. Ramsay’s latest entry features a career best performance from Jennifer Lawrence, and Robert Pattison’s really good too. You’ve got some signature Ramsay traits with blood symbolism, close-ups of angst-ridden facial expressions, characters filmed in the edges of frames/behind objects, trauma etc., but the main thing that holds this joint back from a higher position is just how oblique that trauma symbolism is (if you’ve seen this joint and you’ve seen the burning forest symbolism, you’ll know what I’m talking about). Still, it’s beautifully filmed and beautifully orchestrated as all Ramsay films are, and it remains a fantastic film in my book.
4 – Ratcatcher
Ramsay’s debut feature film follows the internal crisis of a young boy after he accidentally kills a friend during a playfighting accident. Whoa there, that’s not a spoiler, that’s just the plot. If there’s much plot to speak of at all. Which suits me. This is Ramsay in full Ramsay mode with her use of non-actors and slow, ruminative pacing. Ratcatcher established Ramsay as an arthouse darling in the cinematic world, and it perhaps led to a backlash from fans when she apparently went more mainstream with We Need To Talk About Kevin. I don’t follow that shiz, btw, but…anyway. This is a wonderful debut that refuses to draw conclusions about the nature of grief and guilt.
3 – We Need To Talk About Kevin
Here it is, the one that divided the Ramsay crew. I don’t care about that nonsense. I love this flick, and I think Ramsay adapted it in a really intriguing way from Lional Shriver’s source material. It’s an exceptional debut for Ezra Miller (despite the fact they’ve been cancelled for a while now, I can separate the art from the artist in this particular case), Tilda Swinton’s typically great in it as Kevin’s complex and inscrutable mother, as is John C. Reilly as Kevin’s delusional father. It’s still weird to see John C. Reilly in serious roles after witnessing him in mostly comedic roles, but hey, he’s good. Plus Ramsay does a lot a weird and wonderful things with food symbolism with this film. Especially the colour red. Great stuff.
2- Morvern Callar
When it comes to the expressive face, something your humble narrator is a big fan of, you’d be hard pressed to find a better examples in the British Isles than Samantha Morton. Straight away from that weird and engaging opening scene, this is a gal that you want to focus on. You never find out what’s going in her head, and that’s awesome. Even with those flashing lights at the end of the film, you’re no more illuminated than when you see her by the flashing Christmas tree lights at the start. I prefer it to the source material as well for this precise reason. This is a film about watching rather than understanding in the traditional sense of loads of expositional speech. And maybe you might not like it because of this fact. But I do, and that’s what matters.
1- You Were Never Really Here
But the here’s the big one. The holy grail. Probably my favourite performance from Juaquin Phoenix, which is saying something, because he’s a brilliant and enigmatic actor who’s great at playing disturbed individuals, whether more theatrically (see: Gladiator) or less theatrically (see: The Master). The main quote you’ll see on posters for this joint will be describing it as a ‘21st Century Taxi Driver’; while it’s got the bare bones of this structure in its plot, it’s so much more than that (no offence Taxi Driver, I love you too). It’s a deeply psychological study of a deeply disturbed individual, and it doesn’t waste time explicitly detailing the reason behind this emotional state, you’ll just have to put that together from the fractured flashbacks and Johnny Greenwood’s equally fractured, genius orchestral score. It’s essentially a perfect pastiche of the silent hero…but, if I go talking down that direction, in a similar fashion to The Simpsons’ Handsome Pete, I’ll be dancing/typing for hours.
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